Clara y Claire

While this wasn't a bad film I can't help but shake off the feeling that if the genders of the characters were switched around the film wouldn't be described as a romantic drama but rather a creepy psychological thriller.

Juliette binoche makes even a role like this brighter than it could have been. The mood and tone of the film take you into your own loneliness and make you wonder what all one could or be compelled to do, because one is lonely. There's a line in it 'i dont mind dying. I just don't want to be abandoned.'. Lovely line. Watch it for binoche.

I am always keen to watch a Juliette Binoche film. She is a proper film star who possesses a glowing screen presence. A lesser actress (can we still say that?) would have struggled with the lead role in this film because it is virtually (sic) a one-woman-show. Juliette succeeds with ease. This is a quiet little intimate film about a woman (Clare) in her 50's playing out a mid-life-crisis fantasy over the internet. Her long-term husband left her for a younger version, so she reacted by taking a young lover of her own who soon becomes bored with this much older woman. So, she suddenly decides to create a virtual younger version of herself and chooses the flatmate of the former younger lover to hit on. He has never met her but knows of her, and is conned into believing she is only 24. The cat-and-mouse game is played out just long enough to maintain our interest and we are given interspersed commentary by her as she explains it to her therapist. The scenario plays out in dramatic fashion, but then we become aware that she may not be telling the therapist the full story, and other possible endings emerge. This has the effect of distancing the viewer at a crucial stage, which baffled me at first, but, after the film ended, I believe I understood what the writer was getting at. I am a man in his 50's surfing the web for love, diversion and perhaps even re-definition. My contemporaries and I did not have the internet when we were becoming adults, so for us it is a magic landscape. Previously we were defined by our setting, family, friends, and cultural norms. Now we can be shape-shifting dramatic characters who don't have to make do with the tales others write: Instead we can create and star in our own life. A movie star from a script of our own choosing and editing. Binoche does not visibly glow in this role as much as she often does. Instead she ages defiantly. Her character doesn't actually go on an emotional journey, more a foolish escapade from which she ultimately concludes that having control of one's identity brings with it great responsibility. I liked this movie. Clare is supposed to be an intelligent lecturer, but finds herself behaving like a giddy teenager playing silly but potentially deadly games with the emotions of others. This could have been quite unbelievable, but the simple production and Binoche's skill allow us to take the idea on board. There are many high crane shots in the film which reminded me of sequences in my own dreams in which I seem to hover above the action. Seeing as the very first shot of this film is of someone nudging Clare out of a nap, then this impression that I had was possibly no accident.

In Saffy Nabbou's film 'Who You Think I Am', a woman impersonates a much younger person to woo a man on the internet. She does the job so well they become emotionally close without meeting; but of course, no meeting will ever be possible. Juliette Binoche is pretty good as the lead but the script lets her down. The film mainly works through the clumsy device of having its protagonist talking to a therapist, though at one stage, we're expected to follow an alternative working out of the story that she has imagined as a piece of fiction. The tale ends with a couple of twists in quick succession; at least one of them might have been better revealed upfront, so we understood the character's motivation better.

This film pushes at the limits of what film can do in the sense that most interesting things in it are not what are shown but what the writer can express about the inner life of the character and other non-narrative aspects.

Cinema must show through the lens; it is a complete image. Text is borderless, frameless, it can be objective, or as abstract as is necessary. This is why every film version of "Madame Bovary" is a disappointment because Flaubert never tells the reader what Emma looks like but every actress is an incarnation of Emma.

In terms of this film, when the story progresses in its first half, it work rather well; perhaps a bit slow for some minds, but the characterization and the dilemma are intriguing and contemporary. The camera is fluid and Binoche appeals in her restrained and deceptive role.

The reflection on technology, social media, and how it has changed the way humans see themselves and their relationships is typical, and while the psychological exploration of its effect is engaging, it may border on the slightly too subtle.

Where the film loses some momentum is in the second half which ties the elements together. As a novel the story and the inner narrative would be better presented. That is not a fault of the screenplay, rather it is the possibilities of the medium.

The performances make this worth watching and the depiction of contemporary relationships is another part of the discussion on how society is changing.